and Culture (SPILC)
of F.C. Ogbalu’s landmark contributions in the field of Igbo language and culture studies lies in the fact that he laid the firm foundation on which the edifice now stands. Everyone else then and now stands on his shoulders.
The biblical parable of the sower provides the most apt analogy:
Listen! Once there was a man who went out to sow corn. As he scattered the seed in the field, some of it fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up. Some of it fell on rocky ground where there was little soil. The seeds soon sprouted, because the soil wasn’t deep. Then when the sun came up, it burnt the young plants, and because the roots had not grown deep enough, the plants soon dried up. Some of the seeds fell among thorn bushes, which grew up and choked the plants, and they didn’t pro-duce any corn. But some seeds fell in good soil, and the plants sprouted, grew and produced corn: some had thirty grains, others sixty, and others a hundred. And Jesus concluded, ‘listen then, if you have ears!’
(St Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 4)3 Mazi F.C. Ogbalu sowed the seeds of Igbo language and cultural studies, and they fell on good soil. Decades later, the plants that sprouted and grew have stood the vicissitudes of harsh weather, torrential rains, scorching heat, and even the calamity of a civil war. There is every reason, therefore, to pay to Mazi F.C. Ogbalu the tribute he deserves, without reservations.
The core of his legacies is in his invaluable contributions in laying the foun-dations and charting the course and promoting the growth of Nigerian and, indeed, African literature in African languages despite not being a linguistic or a literary scholar. It is for this reason that this book is dedi-cated to him. We must indicate that our implied definition of language is an amplification of Chinua Achebe’s agelong cryptic statement that language encompasses a people’s worldview. Achebe goes further in his usual ellipti-cal manner to add that “no one can understand another whose language he does not speak.” It becomes clear, therefore, that for Chinua Achebe, and for the purpose of the entire study of this book, language is more than mere words. It is indeed more than “the system of human expression by means of words.” Rather, in our context, Igbo language incorporates the Igbo worldview, Igbo culture, Igbo essence, Igbo life, Igbo literature, and, I dare say, Igbo people as a human species.
We must dismiss outright the views which claim that by paying atten-tion to Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, Efik, Ibibio, Ijaw, and Idoma studies, we are engaging in pseudo-scholarship and doing a disservice to Nigeria because we are seemingly stressing the things that divide more than they unite us as Nigerians. You can use the same flimsy argument on the platform of the Organization for African Unity (OAU), to disparage and negate the rele-vance of studies in Nigerian history, Nigerian drama, Nigerian music, Nige-rian literature, NigeNige-rian religion, NigeNige-rian geography, NigeNige-rian education, and so forth. It should be clear that Nigeria is a microcosm of the A frican reality in its cultural, social, and linguistic diversities. The aggregate of its
parts gives us the whole. We must understand and develop the parts as a means of developing the whole. It is akin to the late indefatigable Nigerian leader Dr. Nnamdi Azikiwe’s theory (in another context) of “tribalism as a pragmatic instrument for national unity.” To survive the tests of time, a language must be kept alive. Mazi F.C. Ogbalu laid the foundation for keeping Igbo language alive in its literature and social usage.
Intensive research into Igbo language is far more necessary now than, perhaps, it has ever been in the last 100 years. We have monumental pressures from the fields of science and technology, which challenge our scholars to reach into the archives of their great minds and come up with the tools for equipping the Igbo language to meet the demands of our time.
To be alive, a language must be popular to its users and must have the func-tional capacity to enable the users absorb into the language any important phenomenon which evolves or intrudes into the culture and for which an expression or terminology must be found. This is the sign of a living lan-guage, a language which will transcend generations and live from century to century. Making a language popular is the function of the news media, law courts, town and village meetings, market activities, formal education arenas, musicians, story- tellers and, very importantly, creative and imagi-native writers. In a distinguished class by themselves are oral performers and creative writers in Igbo language. They manipulate words, sayings, and idiomatic expressions so deftly and magically sonorous that listening to their oral performance becomes a gratifying experience that one con-stantly looks forward to and never gets tired of. From time immemorial, the proverb has been an indispensable element used by the best of Igbo orators, minstrels, raconteurs, and so forth to embellish their speeches, songs, or narratives to make them exceptionally pleasing to the ear. Chinua Achebe captures its true essence in his novel Things Fall Apart when he describes the proverb as “the palm oil with which words are eaten.” In a conventional analogy, it is described as follows: how does salad taste without a dressing?
The controversy brought about in 1929 by the introduction of phonetic symbols into written Igbo by Adams and Ward, went on for decades and impeded in no small way, the development of literature written in Igbo language. However, it was a protracted battle between different camps of Igbo linguistics scholars. The scope and dimensions of the battle and its disastrous consequences have been comprehensively addressed and ana-lyzed in other chapters of this book. While the linguists battled themselves, F.C. Ogbalu approached the development of Igbo language and culture in a unique way. He took the matter to the doorsteps of its most important constituency—the users of the language. He used a grassroots association—
Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture, beginning with his sec-ondary school students, to start a revival movement which soon went viral.
The Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture is in outlook, national, non-denominational, and open to all irrespective of race, ethnic consideration, or creed. The idea was first nursed by Chidozie Ogbalu in 1948, when he was a young tutor at the Dennis Memorial Grammar School
(DMGS), Onitsha. But this idea did not materialize until a year later, at the St. Augustine’s Grammar School, Nkwerre, in 1949. Ogbalu used an already existing cultural association formed by him—the Society for Pro-moting African Heritage—as the nucleus of the Society for ProPro-moting Igbo Language and Culture. So much was the impact and popularity of this Nkwerre-based “school club” that, in 1950, newly educated (crop of) Igbo men met in the chemistry laboratory at the D.M.G.S. premises, Onitsha, to formally inaugurate the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture, Nigeria. At this “formal” inaugural meeting, Dr. Akanu Ibiam (formerly Sir Francis Ibiam), a medical doctor who later became the first African governor of the former Eastern Region of Nigeria, was elected president.
The late Dr. S.E. Onwu who later became the first African Director of Medical Services, Eastern Nigeria, became the first vice president. The sec-ond vice president was the late John Cross Anyogu, the first Igbo Roman Catholic Bishop. Mazi F.C. Ogbalu, the current national chairman and founder of the Society, was then appointed first national secretary, and the late Mr. D.C. Erinne (a scientist) became the first national chairman. Thus, the SPILC, which was first started as a mere “school club,” took off as a national cultural association in 1950.4
Henceforth, as the saying goes, “the rest is history.” The synthesis of Mazi F.C. Ogbalu’s legacy in the field of Igbo studies is best summarized by the eminent Igbo linguistics scholar E. Nolue Emenanjo:
When, therefore, all these contributions are put together, F.C. Ogbalu comes out as something close to a titan, a colossus who stands head and shoulders above any Igbo man, dead or alive, in terms of contribu-tions to Igbo literary development. …Some people have called him the
“Chaucer” of the Igbo language… Ogbalu’s consummate commitment to Standard Igbo as fully explained in his book of that name has helped to put modern Igbo on a path of sanity and universal acceptability… In sum, since the 1940’s, Ogbalu has been the solitary and consistent figure in the fore-front of Igbo cultural revival, … Igbo studies in general and Igbo literary history in particular.5
Notes
1 L. Nnamdi Oraka, “The Role of F.C. Ogbalu and the Society for Promoting Igbo Language and Culture in the Promotion of Igbo Education in Nigeria” in Rems Nna Umeasiegbu (ed.) The Study of Igbo Culture: Essays in Honor of F.C. Ogbalu, Enugu: Koruna Books, 1988, pp. 94–106.
2 Ernest N. Emenyonu, “Preserving the Igbo Language for the 21st century” in Rems Nna Umeasiegbu (ed.) The Study of Igbo Culture: Essays in Honor of F.C. Ogbalu, Enugu: Koruna Books, 1988, pp. 51–63.
3 St. Mark’s Gospel, Chapter 4, verses 3–9.
4 Nnamdi Oraka, “The Role of F.C. Ogbalu…,” pp. 94–95.
5 E. Nolue Emenanjo, “The Ogbalu factor in Igbo Literary History: An Overview”
in Rems Nna Umeasiegbu (ed.) The Study of Igbo Culture: Essays in Honor of F.C. Ogbalu, Enugu: Koruna Books, 1988, pp. 33–50.